Cold Waters – Beginners Tips

Tips for Newcomers

All credit goes to justanoob!

General Tips

1. Always go to ultra quiet and check ambient noise levels at the start, in that order.
2. Know how many wires your boat can support at once, and the range and speed of your torpedoes (1968 scenarios have much slower torps).
3. Attempt to fully and correctly identify any contacts, if at all possible. This includes detection by passive, visual, or ESM.
4. Watch the numbers on the lower part on the “Signatures” tab once you have identified your targets. This represents the ability of enemy ships to detect you by active sonar, passive sonar, and towed array. Take care that the numbers do not exceed 10, especially on passive and towed array, otherwise they would have a fix on your position.
5. If you want to sneak closer to your opposition, keep your nose pointed towards them and remain in ultra quiet. This should delay detection by active sonar by quite a bit (Especially so in 1968 where enemy sonars are basically trash across the board).
6. Never, ever fire a sub-launched missile without some sort of exit plan. Especially in a slow sub like the Sturgeons or the Narwhal with enemy ASW planes and helos present.
7. Be aggressive, but not reckless. Too aggressive and you get sunk, but too careful and the enemy will drop a torp on your head before you can execute your attack plan and turn you defensive at the start.
8. If you enter an engagement with an ASW plane present in the strategic map, the enemy will have a rough idea on where you are and ASW plane support. If a satellite is present, because they have very wide detection range the enemy will have a good idea on where you are, expect either a helo or a missile-launched torp on top of you very soon after you enter engagement.
9. Know your cavitation depth so you can quickly judge what speed you can travel the fastest if you need to be somewhere in a hurry yet still remaining fairly quiet.
10. Know the noise level of your own sub. On the ship recognition chart, the right-most sub icon on the lower left will display info on your own sub, including noise level. This combined with info on local ambient noise level should help you determine how close you can get without attracting much attention (e.g, a Los Angeles sub will put out roughly 120db, with a 75db ambient noise this means you can get close up to 10-15k yd on a surface target with relatively good passive sonar like the Kara, Kresta II, Kirov, Kiev, etc without being detected. Any closer and you run the risk of either summoning an ASW helo or missile-launched torps on top of you)
11. Dog-leg your torps whenever possible to hide your datum. Keep to medium range (15k-20k yd is best), launch your torp directly at the target (so in the event the wire breaks they’re not completely wasted shots) and angle your torp after launch so they come from a different bearing and hopefully the enemy fires their torps that way instead of directly at you.
12. 15k yds is the limit where the game will say “No vessels/ weapons/ aircraft nearby”. Slip outside this range for any contacts you do not want to engage.
13. Use the layer to your advantage.
14. If ambient noise level is high (>90 db), don’t be afraid to go active for a few pings at a time. Wait until the enemy pings back in return and shoot back at their bearing. Don’t forget to clear your datum as well!
15. Sometimes unorthodox tactics works (including running backwards at 5 kts to maintain distance from a closing contact while setting up fire solutions or slipping away undetected, etc).

Evasion

1. When evading a torp, make full use of your depth trim as well. Rudders and planes may not be enough.
2. If possible, keep a moss loaded in one of your tubes. May just buy you enough time to execute evasive maneuvers if the enemy drop a torp on you while you’re still slow.
3. Keep the enemy torps behind you so you can continuously feed them knuckles. This will help cutting down on noisemaker expenditure and wasting their fuel from having to go around the knuckle every time.
4. Watch carefully when you drop a noisemaker or make a knuckle on an chasing enemy torpedo. If it’s going around, then you can settle back into the heading you want to go to prepare another knuckle. If it’s running straight through, move away from your original bearing and either go deep or go shallow. Evade then settle back into the original heading.
5. Keep away from any area where the enemy got a fix on you after evasion. Keep away at least 8k yards from any sonobuoys dropped, and if you’re within that distance, attempt to sneak away by traveling deep (ASW MAD have a limit of 500ft on vanilla, but obviously not applicable in shallow waters), below 15 kts, and perhaps by firing a moss at the sonobuoys and running in the opposite direction. Also take care to never point your screws directly towards the sonobuoys, keep them at a slight angle and change directions every so often to reduce the possibility of the ASW getting another fix on you and dropping another one on top of your head.

Special

1. SEAL insertion mission needs to be run properly, but most importantly, quietly. Else you risk the SEAL teams failing their mission and/ or losing your sub as well.
2. TLAM strikes have been simplified since the days of Jingles. No longer do you have the blue circle where you have to shoot your TLAMs into, instead the strike needs only to be targeted some distance away from the actual target, but the launch also has to be within 100 miles/ 75k yds to be counted. Bring extras TLAMs just in case.

Note: Archangelsk is a ♥♥♥ of a port to do TLAM strikes/ SEAL insertion at.

3. Y2K mission may also have a SEAL insertion mission on an oil rig patrolled usually by 2 surface vessel and potentially a sub as well. You need to identify the surface vessel patrol routes exactly to avoid being overrun by one vessel when heading into the insertion point, which is the oil rig itself.
4. It may be preferable to occasionally fail a mission outside of the final boomer-hunting mission if you think you don’t have the number of weapons required to finish it (e.g, being sent on a mission to kill a resupply ship being escorted by a Luda DDG and Jiangwei FF in shallow waters with only one Mk.48, 2 moss, and one tasm remaining. That was fun.
5. Avoid taking damage in Pumps, Reactor, and Propulsion if at all possible. Damage to Pumps mean you cannot clear flooding fast enough until fixed, Reactor will render you dead in the water until repaired, whereas Propulsion will limit your speed to 10 kts and requires RTB to fully fix, making you a sitting duck for torps and everyone else still alive.